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LOCAL Announcement :: Civil & Human Rights : Crime & Police : Miscellaneous : Prisons : Protest Activity

UPDATED ANNOUNCEMENT --- URGENT: CHICAGO POLICE TORTURE SURVIVOR DARRELL CANNON MUST BE FREE

This Friday, September 3, 2004, the Illinois Prisoner Review Board will be holding their final hearing to determine if police-torture victim Darrell Cannon will be released from prison. At this hearing, sections of the upcoming September 1 videotaped questioning of the notorious Lt. Jon Burge, who once headed up a police-torture ring in Chicago. It is crucial that people urge the Board to let Darrell Cannon go - and come to this final hearing which will be taking place at the Thompson Center (State of Illinois Building). The hearing is tentatively scheduled for 9:00 am, in Room #33 on the 8th floor.

UPDATED ANNOUNCEMENT

URGENT: CHICAGO POLICE TORTURE SURVIVOR DARRELL CANNON MUST BE FREE

by VX

This Friday, September 3, 2004, the Illinois Prisoner Review Board will be holding their final hearing to determine if police-torture victim Darrell Cannon will be released from prison. At this hearing, sections of the upcoming September 1 videotaped questioning of the notorious Lt. Jon Burge, who once headed up a police-torture ring in Chicago. At a prior Illinois Prisoner Review Board hearing held last Friday, August 27th, at Stateville Prison, three of the officers involved in the torture of Darrell Cannon each took the 5th in response to questioning by Darrell Cannon's attorneys. Darrell Cannon has been locked up for the last 20 years for involvement in a drug-related murder on the strength of little more than an incriminating statement extracted by police torture. Earlier this year, faced with the likelihood a new series courtroom hearings concerning this torture, the Cook County State's Attorney's office dropped ALL charges against Darrell Cannon. Yet instead of returning to the embrace of his family, Darrell Cannon remains locked in solitary confinement in Tamms Supermax prison, and must await the determination of the Board, who will be deciding whether or not to hold Darrell Cannon in violation of his parole. Should they decide against Darrell Cannon, he could remain in prison until his death. It is crucial that people urge the Board to let Darrell Cannon go - and come to this final hearing which will be taking place in Chicago at the Thompson Center (State of Illinois Building). The hearing is tentatively scheduled for 9:00 am, in Room #33 on the 8th floor. During the proceedings, portions of the September 1 videotaped questioning of Lt. Jon Burge will be shown.

For the last 20 years, Darrell Cannon has been speaking out against police torture - an issue he knew from personal experience, having been tortured by a gang of Chicago police detectives associated with the notorious police torturer Lt. Jon Burge. Picked up for "questioning" in relation to a drug-related killing, Darrell was taken by police to a secluded area on Chicago's south side where they beat him and repeatedly shocked him with cattle prods on his mouth and on his penis. He told them whatever they needed to hear so that the pain would stop.

He has been through two trials - the first overturned in large part because the presiding judge was found guilty of taking bribes and the blatant racism by prosecutors in jury selection . The second overturned because the judges - one a former associate of Jon Burge - barred testimony from police torture victims. Beginning in the summer of 1999, suppression hearings were held during which a number of other victims of police torture testified against some of the same officers that tortured Darrell Cannon. Before that hearing ended and a decision for a new trial reached, the State's Attorney's office offered a deal that Darrell Cannon could not refuse - an early release from prison in exchange for a plea to a lesser charge. It was a cynical attempt to play on the hard choice Darrell Cannon faced of spending many more years in prison - even if he ultimately won in court - versus the immediate needs of being reunited with family. In January, 2001, Darrell Cannon agreed to the deal - which led to the Catch-22 outcome where the Illinois Review Board used that very same plea agreement with the States Attorney's office as cause to revoke his parole from a prior conviction.

After years of trying to change the Board's decision - during which the date for his "release" had passed - Darrell Cannon's lawyers filed to withdraw the plea and demanded a new trial. This time, rather than endure more politically embarrassing testimony by victims of Burge-related police torture, the State's Attorney's office dropped all charges against Darrell Cannon. All fairness would dictate that his release would be a given. But fairness is a word that can never be used with the criminal justice system. The Illinois Prisoner Review board is now trying to determine other reasons for violating Darrell Cannon's parole - and if they do that - he will likely remain in prison for the rest of his life. This outrage can not be allowed to occur.

To contact the Illinois Prisoner Review Board:

319 E. Madison St. Suite A
Springfield, IL 62701
Phone (217) 782-7273
Fax: (217) 524-0012

To attend the hearing come to:

State of Illinois Thompson Center
downtown Chicago at the corners
of Randolph and Clark
8th floor
Room #33
September 3rd
9:00 am

IMPORTANT: Check Indymedia just in case there are any last minute changes of time or location

For more information:

  • Surviving Police Torture: The Story of Darrell Cannon, Virus X, Revolutionary Worker #1007, May 23, 1999
  • The Chicago Inquisition, Stories of Police Torture, Revolutionary Worker #1068, August 27, 2000
  • What Price Freedom?, John Conroy, Chicago Reader, March 2, 2001
  • Poison in the System, John Conroy, Chicago Reader, June 25, 1999
  • Trial by Torture Sasha Abramsky, Mother Jones, March 3, 2000
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